


Escapee

by thephilosophah



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sgrub Session, Gen, Horrorterrors - Freeform, not tagging erifef because its really minor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-01 19:13:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2784518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thephilosophah/pseuds/thephilosophah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Feferi Peixes. Having Reached the age of maturity, you are now burdened with a death threat constructed for you, and you only. You stand no chance against the Empress herself, ridiculous!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Your Name

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First fic I've ever written, tell me what you think!

Your name is Feferi Peixes.

Having reached the age of maturity, you are now burdened with a death threat constructed for you, and you only. Your head is expected to roll on the sea floor before two pedigree’s time. The entire empire knows of your doings, of your past, of your achievements. The entire empire knows your failures, your cowardice, your hesitance. You stand no chance against the Empress herself, ridiculous! How could a tiny scared weakling like you ever even think of facing Her Imperial Condensation and survive long enough to see Her coming? Why, it is so silly!

Your name is Feferi Peixes.

Come age fifteen, you escaped your hive and ran on land, seeking time more than freedom. You cannot escape death, you have always known. But maybe, just maybe, you can delay it long enough to achieve power to end your hunter. You know you have no chance. But maybe you can build one.

 

The sun is scorching hot. Only the madly desperate choose to wander during daytime. Unfortunately for you, you are madly desperate. So desperate you move about a town under the sun’s never forgiving glare. Of course, you want to survive. Of course, staying under shade does not guarantee that.

You haven’t slept all day. Or last day. You’ve been awake for over fifty hours. It’s not that you feel tired or sleepy. No, your caste is capable of maintaining consciousness and awareness for longer than some trolls live. Your problem is that not resting your eyes has made them slow to respond to your brain. Not even the desperately mad would dare walk under the sun with tired eyes.

Well, sucks for you.

You are currently in what you would call an alley, if you bothered enough. The reason you remain in this place is that you need to cross the street. Under the sun. Fuck sun. The buildings may provide shade in the alley, but the street is wide open. If you run really fast, you could probably avoid being exposed long enough to be affected considerably. If you run really fast, everything you have to conceal you from the sun – your hair, a short rotten cape – will flare up and fail to keep you from harm.

Running away in a tank top and a pair of shorts was the worst idea you’ve ever had. Good thing you managed to snatch some boots yesternight. Your legs from knee to thigh feel burning from the sunrays’ reflection on literally everything. You could probably wear the cape as a skirt and hide your arms under your monstrous hair. Yeah, that sounds good.

You slide your cape down to your waist and nuzzle your arms in your hair. You glance across the street, long enough to get where it is but quickly enough to keep your eyes from harm. You take a breath.

You ran as fast as you possibly can with your eyes closed, even diving at the end and forward rolling your way into shade. You look up to the buildings surrounding you. Specifically, you look at the open window on the sixth floor of the lowblood apartment block on your right. Climbing was never your strong suit, but then again, neither was running away. You believe in confrontation, so you climb. You manage to slip in without making a noise. Remaining silent is a skill necessary for survival underwater, where everything can hear anything from miles away much faster and much better than any land creature ever could.

You roam around the apartment, looking for its occupant. You find her sleeping in her recouperacoon with her head out of the slime for breathing. She’s a middle aged maroonblood, probably around your age. How old she looks and how young you do!

You find the hygiene block and slip in, closing the door behind you. Looking at the mirror, you see what you’ve been denying for the past three nights: travelling at day is a very bad idea. Your skin is flushing fuchsia and your eyes are burning red. You try to dilate your pupils, the room turning brighter as you do. You then turn your eyes to slits, and the room darkens around you. You open the mirror closet thing and look at the lowblood’s makeup collection. She owns at least twelve different shades of rust lipstick and about seven matching mascaras and pencils. Maybe if you tried hard enough your fuchsia face could be interpreted as maroon. As you roam about her foundations, you notice a pile of fresh clothes in the towel closet. You take a look and – who even does this – she has a shelf full of clothes among the towels. Well, that makes sense.

You wash your face – it stings like hell – and snatch a shirt. You inspect her symbol. It looks like a Y with the two top branches swirling outwards. You recall her horns swirling similarly. Huh.

You look down at your own shirt and up at your own horns, seeing the similarity of the outer curves, remembering how you would hang a ribbon across your horns so that they appear like your symbol. You realize how much of a giveaway your horns are.

You’re going to have to cut them.

You look around, search in the mirror, feel your way through countless makeup before you find a horn carver. This thing is used to gently dig tiny designs onto a horn, there’s no way it can cut though two without breaking. There’s also no way you are leaving without trying. You plug the carver in and it starts up with a quiet buzz.

Time to do this.

Be brave.

If you regret it you only have to remind yourself that they’ll grow back in about three sweeps.

You visualize where you want to cut – staring from the outer middle and working up to a sharp point – take a deep breath, and move the carver in place. And you cut.

It’s as slow as you expected and more painful than you imagined. You remember the one time you broke a tooth and had to remove it. You remember piercing your oversensitive fins countless times in the same night. You even remember that one time you were stabbed in the gills. If anything, cutting through your horn with a carver feels as slow as the piercings, as jolting as the tooth removal and as unbelievably painful as the gill stab.

Eventually, the upper half of your horn comes off and you take it in your hand. It fits ironically well there. It has a perfect handle and a sharp edge, making it perfect for a knife. You look up into the mirror, your now asymmetrical horns standing proud on top of your head. There are tears in your eyes. Of course. Now you have to do the same on the other side.

After an eternity, you manage to make a clean cut on your other horn, surprised you cut it symmetrical on the first try. You wash your face one more time, gently patting cold water on your damaged horns to relieve the pain. You look at the mirror once more.

Wow. You look horrible.

You continue stripping yourself of your identity. You wear the woman’s shirt inside-out over your own. You slip on a pair of grey jeans over your shorts. You remove all the jewelry you wear, starting with your tiara, working your way down your armlets and finally reaching your bracelets. You fail to ignore the tan marks around them.

You start putting on this stranger’s makeup, painting yourself in a foreign color you never thought you’d wear. You opt for black eye makeup, but put on a maroon lipstick. You take a step back to look at your work while covering your earfins with your hair. You definitely don’t look like yourself. Good thing the color has only just started creeping in your eyes. It’s near impossible to tell it’s not the same color as your lipstick.

Wow. You feel horrible.

You put everything back in place and gather what’s left of you. You stuff your gold in your pockets and your horns in the back of the lowblood’s – of _your_ pants. You make sure they are easily accessible, seeing as you have no other weapon whatsoever. You miss your sylladex.

You then peek at the maroonblood to make sure you haven’t woken her up – you haven’t – and then stand in front of the widow you came in from. You close your eyes. You slit them. You take a deep breath, deep enough to tickle your gills into flaring, and look outside. The sun is still moving downwards slowly, just as you left it, except the sky is starting to lose its intensity. It’s still not safe to walk outside.

You’re so close to the sea, this town is a big port town, you’re so close. You’ve walked all across this land to get to the other side without any seadwellers spotting you. Two fuchsiabloods in the same oceans mean certain death for one of them and several unfortunate passersby. You search for food around the hive – when was even the last time you ate, damn – and luckily find some grubloaf already cut in slices. You take one and sit by the window, munching on the tasteless food as you watch the building across the alley get darker and darker.

When you deem it safe enough to leave, you pause for a moment to silently thank this sleeping rustblood.

By the time you reach the dock, people have already started moving about the streets, and by the time you find what you’re looking for, the sun is gone for good.

The shop you found, if it can be called a shop, is but a cover up for a black marketer. The font sells cosmetics, clothes and hygienic stuff you normally wouldn’t bother with, such as hydration lotion. What kind of seadweller is dehydrated?

You walk in and move straight to the back. You find the guy you’ve heard about there. He’s about your height but clearly older, and as a blueblood you think him about fifty. He glances up from his book at you, proceeding to do a double take. You don’t even bother hiding the fact that you’re not wearing a symbol as you walk over to his desk, the dim light form the lamp on it being the only light source in the room.

“Now what is a girl like you doing here?” he asks, setting his book aside.

“I have something that might interest you. I only ask for a few things in return.”

“What could you even have that is even worth my time, low little girl?” You feel humiliated. Not at the fact that you look seven, but at the double standard. At the fact that ‘lowblood’ is an insult and ‘highblood’ is a title. At the fact that you stripped your own identity from yourself. You hold your stance.

“I want some clothes, makeup, a haircut and a bag. And some glasses”, you say as you pull out your right horn and leave it on his table.

“Well that seems like a lot of trouble to go through for a makeover”, he responds, inspecting your severed body part. He twists and swirls it, looking it over. Eventually he holds it up. His eyes fly up to your horns, down at your symbol-less shirt, then back up your horns. “You-!” You lean over the table so quickly you cut him off.

“I also want you to keep a secret. Think you can manage that?” You struggle to keep your face neutral.

“This piece of your head is not enough to have me lie to my Empress”, he stands up.

“Whale then”, you make a fish pun after what feels like sweeps while grabbing the horn from his hands, holding it against his chitinus windhole and pinning both his hands down on the desk with your free one, “I can get a bit more persuasive if you want. Now, I want you to reconsider: are you loyal to an Empress who only visits her homeplanet to slay the young of her own caste, or to your heiress who seeks safety for the people of the empire?”

He tries to escape your hold, failing miserably. He wears a face of pure terror as he realizes that being a highblood won’t help him against the highest of highbloods.

“What do you want?” He asks, trying and almost succeeding at sounding intimidating. You narrow your eyes.

“Glasses. Clothes. Makeup. A haircut. A bag.” He twists his face unrecognizably. “Violet.”

“Oh, I see”, he slips, smirking, “You’re running away.” You press your horn against his skin. His face drops.

“It would be a shame to stain blue such a good quality horn, wouldn’t it? Now listen carefully. My symbol is a circle-“

“You mean to fake your symbol, too? How far can you get?”

“My symbol is a circle”, you repeat slowly, pressing against his skin hard enough to bruise but not hard enough to cut, “with a horizontal line across it. The line is about one and a half of the circle’s diameter. Violet.”

“... Fine. Be my guest, look around the shop. Find what you like and I’ll have some stamps of your symbol ready when you come back.”

“Oh, no, you must’ve misunderstood. You’re coming with me.” You slip your horn back in your pants, grab the collar of his shirt and the top of his pants and flip him over the table and next to you. “And don’t you dare think I need a weapon to rip your throat.” He twists his face in horror again, but walks to the door nonetheless. He takes a few deep breaths to get to his neutral face. You use this time to wipe your lipstick on the inside of your shirt.

When you two come back, he starts preparing what you assume is a stamp with ‘your’ symbol for the things you chose. You wipe all the maroon makeup off and switch the shirts you were wearing for a new one. He doesn’t even bother to hide his stare as you change clothes, and he seems more aggressive than guilty when you stare back. He only shows some kind of fear again when you crack your neck and show off your gills in the process.

You put on the violet makeup – following the same pattern as before – and take the scissors. Your hair is practically wiping the floor; it’s pretty damn obvious you’re a royal. You cut it at chest height, so that it’s not too long but it can still easily hide your fins and gills. You put all your arm jewelry on, this time only one armlet fulfilling its intended use, the rest resting around your wrists. You throw your tiara at the bottom of your bag, alongside the couple of sets of clothes you chose. You finish your look by putting on your glasses, a plain violet oval pair.

You look at the guy. He’s done with the stamp.

“Where do you want it?” You point at the middle of your chest. He pulls your shirt down and touches the stamp on it for a few seconds. When you look closely, the stamp looks like more of a machine than an actual stamp. No wonder it doesn’t need pressure to leave the symbol.

“The other shirts too. And the bag”, you say and he complies.

As soon as you’re finished, you put your bag over your shoulder. You turn to him and he points at a side door over his shoulder. You nod. Before you move, you take one of your horns out of your bag and hand it to him in a handshake manner. As he moves into the handshake, you grab him by the collar with your free hand and pull him close to your face.

“You never saw me. You don’t know me. You don’t know what happened to all this stuff I just bought. Talk about me and I will end you. Don’t you dare think my death will get you off the hook. I have friends that don’t give shit about the empire. And really, do you think anyone important will notice if you die?”

“What kind of troll doesn’t care about the empire?”

“A lowblood. You’d be surprised to know how much the oppressed can hate their oppressors.”

“A lowblood? Do you really think I’ll be scared of some lowbloods?”

“Depends, how many lowbloods are you thinking about? Can they populate this whole town?”

You walk out and to the decks. You could board a ship visibly, but you find that risky. You’ll have to wash off your make up at _some_ point, and that might prove dangerous with your sunflushed face. Secret boarding it is. Ideally, a ship that would not matter to the empire would prove incredibly useful. Like a pirate ship. Yeah.

You scan the ships for cover up flags – who uses an actual pirate flag in a deck – and find four certainly, with another three you have doubts about. You decide to board on the closest of the certain four.

You creep on the ship next to it, as it seems abandoned, climb over your target ship and slip on the stirring wheel platform. Keeping an eye on the couple of trolls on the deck, you slip inside and into the kitchen. You find an empty cupboard, kneel in front of it, do a double take around you and squeeze in there. The way you have bended your limps is impossible, but you manage to find a position that is not incredibly uncomfortable, only uncommonly so.

You close the cupboard and decide it’s a good time to catch some shuteye.


	2. Your Blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy holidays!

You wake up to the sound of steps banging on wood. There are repetitive sounds of cupboards opening and closing quickly. You can’t have slept for so long that the cook be cooking already. Why is someone so frantically searching through the kitchen?

Your question is answered when your cupboard flies open and a hand yanks you out so abruptly you twist several joints. You refuse to make a sound as you are thrown at the wall facing the cupboard you were in. You look at the owner of the hand, and by the shiny thing on his shoulder you guess he’s the captain. He is about your height and age, you notice, maybe a bit taller and younger. He wears a pair of stupidly thick-framed black glasses and a lot of violet all over his clothes.

“Who the fuck are you an what are you doin on my ship”, he hisses, dragging out his w’s. You note he has wavy horns matching his sign and a violet streak in his hair.

“My name is Feriaf”, you lie with a practiced voice, “And I need to get away. I have something you might be interested in.”

“I highly doubt that, Feriaf”, he pronounces your fake name with distrust, “Why would a seadweller need to escape and why would an escapee have anythin I’m interested in?”

“I see you are right to doubt me”, you glance at the gold he wears, from his few piercings to his plentiful rings, “But valuable as your gold may be, I have something far rarer to find.”

There are several moments when neither of you speak or move. He looks you up and down, taking a long moment to memorize your sign. Either that or he was rudely looking at your rumble spheres.

“And?” He asks, clearly annoyed.

“And”, you fiddle with your bag, “I only ask to be carried on this ship. I am willing to work for my stay if you are willing to conceal me.” You slip a hand in your bag and his eyes glance down before he tenses up and takes a defensive stance. You pull out your horn, sharp side facing you, numb side facing him. His eyes fly up over your head.

“You! You’re th-” You leap at him but he is quick to hold his ground. You knee him in the gut and hold his hands against your own as much as he is holding yours against his.

“You’re the fuckin heiress, aren’t you?” He whispers as you push up against each other. “Ha! The heiress, humiliated and striped of all her identity, hidin on my ship. Now what could possibly bring you so low?” The fucker chuckles. “Oh, could it be that you’re too scared to do a little battle?” He tries to move your hands out and down, but you don’t let him. He’s definitely used to fighting weaker trolls, equally strong at the very worst, and you’re the first royal he’s ever met. He has no idea what you’re capable of. You also know of the damn biology that makes him _extremely_ attracted to you. He’s probably trying to make the situation black by teasing you. Well, tough luck.

“Are you?” you lean in and whisper and, as he leans in as well, you twist his right arm outwards and down until he lets go of your other hand. You then use your newfound mobility to pin him to the ground face-down. You sit on him. “Here’s my offer”, you say, stretching to grab your horn and moving it by his fin. “I will work on your ship and you will bear my existence on it as long as I work right.” You run your horn down to his gills. “I will give you this lovely, expensive and unbelievably rare royal horn and you will keep quiet about my blood and identity.” You put it down next to his face so he can see it, but too close to actually take a look. “How does that sound?”

“Bullshit.” You sigh and move so your legs are on either side of his torso. You have to keep yourself from giggling at how he tenses up as soon as he realizes your crotch is touching his back. Jeez, what a wriggler.

“Don’t even try to go black on me, boy”, you say and press down on his head, gently crushing it against the floor. “It’s not going to work. You can try to deny it, but I think both you and I know that when the captain has his face flat on the ship, the troll holding him down can hardly be described as romantic.” You are pretty sure his skull will give in if you push any more so you stop it. He takes this as a sign of hesitance and attempts to slip away. You have one of his hands held against his back, so his struggle only hurts him.

“Haha, no. I’m a royal for a reason. Now do we have a deal or not?” When he doesn’t answer, you shift your weight on your knees and turn him around before you sit back down on him. He struggles not to _do something_ – blush, punch you, run, you’re not sure – and keeps a very bad card game face. At least it’s hard for you to tell what he’s thinking. “Yeah, no, shut up. I told you, it’s not going to work. I don’t care if I have to fucking sit here all night, I’m getting my ride.” He realizes you know of his attraction and makes it evident. So now that you know he knows you know how he feels, he narrows his eyes.

“You are the highest of highbloods. How can you be willin to stoop so low?” You remember the rustblood identity you wore only hours ago. You stand up.

“You’d be surprised.”

He looks at you for a moment before following suit. Now that you’re both standing straight, you can see he is indeed slightly taller than you. You look at your horn on the floor long enough for him to glance down too. You look him in the eye. And wait.

“I accept the deal. For now.” He extends a hand for a handshake and you low-five it before doing a mocking bow.

“Good. Now what work am I doing here?”

“How much do you know about knots?” he says, skeptical.

“Please, don’t insult me. I learnt how to tie ropes before I learnt how to read.”

“Good.” He looks up, as if trying to remember something. “Most a the crew sleeps in the same room. How well can you hide yourself while sleepin? Better yet, how much sleep does your caste need?”

“I probably can’t hide my blood color well enough while sleeping, but I only need an hour of sleep every day. I can easily go four nights without sleep.” As long as you don’t go out in the sun, that is.

“Good”, he repeats. “Here’s what I’m thinkin: the crew won’t even last half a night without tryin to get their hands on you.” _Like the captain will_ , you think. “I suggest you be presented as a mate a mine.” He’s either really stupid and undereducated about quadrants or actually smart enough to come up with a solid solution.

“Is this your idea of flirting or are you serious?”

“I’m serious”, he rolls his eyes. “Nobody on this ship is stupid enough to sneak up on me during daytime. You’ll be safe in my cabin.” Well, what can you lose? You’ve already lost your hive, your lusus, your identity and your dignity. Whatever he tries to take from you, he won’t succeed. You’re certain. You’re much stronger and faster than him.

“Deal.”

He manages to distract the crew long enough for you to slip in the captain’s cabin – in _his_ cabin. You find nothing that even resembles a recouperacoon. Portable ones were probably a fuchsia-exclusive privilege. He casually walks in and hangs his cape on a thing you can’t quite make sense of.

“Okay. Feferi, is it? What can you do other than tie knots?”

“Feriaf”, you falsely correct him, “Feriaf Zarics.”

“Feriaf Zeirix”, he repeats sarcastically, and you accept the pronunciation, “That’s very imaginative. What else can you do?”

“I can clean stuff, everyone can. I could also keep watch, I guess. Make maps? I can steer a ship too.” He nods with every skill you add, moving things about the cabin, misplacing some that roll with the movement of the ship.

“Good. You’re now in charge a makin maps and second wheel handler. For now find a deck to clean and make sure your gills stay hidden.” He puts your horn in a small chest and turn to you. “Questions.”

“I will be sleeping here?”

“Yes.”

“Can I leave this here?” You lift your bag off your shoulder.

“Be my guest.” He turns back to whatever it is he’s doing.

“Your name?”

“Eridan Ampora.”

“Last one. What do I tell to the crew?” You put your bag on the floor below his hung cape and leave all your armlets there. You take several hair ties and leave them around your left wrist.

“You’re my mate, Feriaf Zeirix. Don’t answer which quadrant. You lived in that town but decided to follow me on the ship. Dismissed.”

You don’t like his tone, but decide to leave anyway. You loosely braid your hair so that it’s hiding your fins and gills but still out of the way before you exit.

It is easier than you thought to find a deck to clean. The second deck, actually. The crew doesn’t seem too willing to clean anything if the captain isn’t going to see it. Turns out he usually spends most of his time on the top deck, so no one bothers with the rest. Better for you, there’s no one around to ask you questions or bother you as you do your job. Well, until a tealblood walks in, that is.

She looks you up and down as you mop across the deck before she walks up to you and looks very closely at your face. For a moment you think she must be on to you.

“Who the hell are you?” She says with her face practically nuzzling in the unbraided part of your hair.

“My name is Feriaf. Yours?” She ignores your question.

“And what are you doing on this ship?”

“Working,” you state, “Obviously.”

“Don’t joke with me, Feriaf. I know everyone who works on this ship, and you’re not one of them. I know all the new people that board this ship and, guess what, you weren’t among them. Who are you and what are you doing here?”

“I told you, the name is Feriaf”, you sigh, “And, believe it or not, the captain wants me here.”

“Oh? Is that so?”

“Yes”, you deadpan, “That is indeed so.” You mop over her boots to make her move.

“Ugh. And what would the captain want you for?”

“I’m his girlfriend.” She struggles not to laugh.

“Girlfriend? Seriously? Ha! What quadrant, even? I can’t tell if you find him pitiful or annoying enough to date him!”

“Is that the respect you show to your captain?” you gracefully avoid the question. “How dare you mock your superior. He is the captain of this ship and a far higher caste than you can afford to make fun of.” You hate to play the highblood card, but she seems stupid enough to buy it, and she does. She stays speechless for a while before she finds the gap in your argument.

“What about you? Aren’t you a bit too high on the spectrum to be wiping floors?” She smirks. “Oh, his sense of hateflirt is way worse than I feared.” You drop the mop and grab her top, which you wouldn’t really call a shirt.

“How dare you”, you whisper. You then headbutt her a little harder than you intended, causing her to collapse on the freshly-mopped deck. Well, you can’t really work under _these_ conditions, can you? You figure exploring the wheel’s whereabouts and basic function is worth leaving a passed out tealblood on the second deck.

The wheel handler is very friendly and generally indifferent. He barely nods as you state your business and doesn’t seem to question your relationship with the captain. You figure he either doesn’t believe you and finds no harm in humoring you, or he actually does believe you. He lets you watch him and ask questions as he sails. You even manage to make some small talk with him.

It is very pacifying to watch the crew work across the deck. Not because you get a sense of superiority - that’d be stupid and you simply refuse to develop such feelings - but because it gives you a slice of a life you’ve never had, and probably a life you’ll never get. You try to remember when was the last time you worked for anything but all that comes to mind is the piles of corpses you fed to your lusus.

 _Sigh._ Gl’bgolyb.

You don’t have much time to feel nostalgic over the horrorterror that raised you, because some movement on the deck catches your fancy. Specifically, a large wave of violet catches your fancy. Captain Ampora and the tealblood that was bothering you earlier are standing together and quietly talking. A quiet ‘oh-oh’ escapes your lips as you get the feeling that something is wrong. When she said she knew everyone on deck you assumed she was responsible for slaves or something, not that she was likely the _first mate_. Fuck. Ampora takes a big breath.

“Highbloods on first deck!” he shouts, managing to sound graceful, majestic, threatening and demanding in a way you’ve been taught to master yourself.

Of course, you shoot the wheel handler a worried glance before he motions an oliveblood to take his place. He then nods at you and moves on the deck with you close behind him.

Before you know it, an impressive number of highbloods has got on deck and they’re all standing upright, hands behind their backs. You copy the stance. When Ampora decides enough people have gathered, he speaks up with that loud voice he used before.

“One a you got in a little disagreement with Cynday here. I will give you a chance to come forward yourself. If you are the one, speak up now.” He proceeds to make this very obvious pause of I-kinda-don’t-care-who-you-are before continuing. “Fair enough”, he turns to the tealblood next to him, Cynday, and the two say something quietly. She motions her head towards your general direction, Ampora following the movement. His eyes fall on you.

“Zeirix, get over here. Everyone else is dismissed.” The routine returns on the ship as quickly as it left. You walk up to the pair, and by the time you do they’ve already moved in the captain’s cabin. You take a deep, nervous breath and rearrange your hair on your gills before you walk in.

Ampora is leaning against the table in the middle of the room, arms crossed, while Cynday is doing the stance nearby. You follow suit and do the stance as well. Ampora gives you a look before turning to Cynday.

“What exactly happened?” he asks calmly.

“I ran into her on the second deck, she was mopping the floor. I found it unusual for a seadweller to be doing such work, so I questioned her. She stated she was your, quote, girlfriend. I thought it was questionable for a quadrantmate of the captain’s, a violetblood no less, be worked this hard. When I questioned her further, she knocked me out and left me there. That is all.” She, too, speaks calmly, but lacks the grace and demand of Eridan.

“And what happened?” he said, this time looking at you.

“I was cleaning just as you told me to. She walked up to me and asked absurd things, completely ignoring my answers and showing disbelief to my word. She insulted me, which I chose to overlook, but she proceeded to insult you, too. At that I attempted to reason her by word, yet she continued to ignore me and mock you. I decided to silence her by using as little violence as possible, but I accidentally used more force than I intended to, knocking her out. I left to find a medic of some sorts, but failing to do so, I sought work near the wheel handler, as you told me to.” You keep your voice level and clear, having all the qualities Ampora displayed earlier, yet adding your own notes to your little speech. At some point between the mopping and the insults, Ampora raises an eyebrow at you in what you take as interest or awe. “That is all”, you add and he nods in understanding. He then stares at the floor for a couple of minutes in deep thought.

“Let this not be repeated. Cynday, if you could please keep away from Feriaf. And Fef, likewise.” You catch his implication. He’s using this nickname to imply a relationship. Or, at least, you hope.

“Understood”, the tealblood says, and for a moment you feel you should repeat it, but then remember you should keep it casual.

“Got it.” You fear it’s too casual, but neither seems to question it.

“Good. Cynday, dismissed.” She bows her head at him before walking out the door. As she does so, she keeps her eyes trained on you.

You wait for a moment after she exits before you relax. You sigh and walk over to Ampora as he sits on the table.

“How was that?” you ask.

“Fine, what are you doin?” Truth be told, you had kinda placed your hands on his shoulders and moved in his personal space.

“She’s watching”, you excuse yourself, “Can’t you hear it?” He wiggles his fins around before answering.

“No. What are _you_ hearin?”

“She’s right outside. Even if you paid no mind to the sound of her breath, aren’t you even a little confused as to why you didn’t hear her stepping away?”

“Uh, no? I don’t bother with that shit. Seriously, what are you doin?”

“Keep it down”, you say while pressing against his knees until you’re between them. You lay your chest against his.

“What. The. Fuck.” He doesn’t manage to hide his entire blush and, upon noticing the violet staining his cheeks, you giggle. “If you gonna laugh in my face then I’m gonna throw you off the deck”, he states.

“That won’t work out well for you”, you mumble in his fin, “She’ll know I’m in Her ocean right away and will slaughter everyone in a 5-mile radius.”

“Interestin, tell me more”, he rolls his eyes.

“Oh I would love to. But how about you take your hands off my ass first.”

“Nah”, he smirks. You narrow his eyes at him. Cynday has left already, but you don’t really have to tell him that, do you? Not when you can toy with him so easily. You peck his lips.

He does a weird thing that is sort of like a muffled cry or an agonized mumble and jolts away from you and on the table. His face is a mix of ‘what the fuck’ and distrust. His eyes turn to slits for a moment before you step away.

“Don’t”, you say.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t even think about it.” He narrows his eyes.

“Oh, so, you can do anythin you want, but I can’t even think.”

“Yes!” you grin.

“I don’t think so.” He gets off the table and walks to you. “This is my ship and I could literally kill you any minute.”

“Likewise”, you bare your fangs.

“Yeah, no. My entire crew would come after you, Fef, don’t ever doubt that. Me, on the other hand? I’d be celebrated, I saved my Empress the trouble a botherin with a little wriggler.” He’s looming over you now, his hateful words carrying nothing that resembles romantic black. You struggle to keep your eyes from twitching to slits.

“Hilarious. You would never be celebrated. Best case scenario, you’d be culled at sight. Your killing me would be seen as disrespect to Her, they’d say you didn’t think She could do it. And, really, what makes you think you can win a fight against me, little violet boy?” You attempt to stare down on him despite being shorter. He looks furious.

“Why don’t we try it and see how it goes?” You raise an eyebrow.

He moves forward and you bend your knees, shoving your shoulder in his stomach, wrapping your arms around him and kicking the wall behind you to fall on him. You both end up on the floor. He yanks your hair to his side and you grab him by the neck, mindful of his gills. He tries to punch you but you move your fingers on his gills and _press_ down on them hard. He chokes.

He releases your hair and you take the chance to get on your feet, letting go of his neck. You kick him, aiming for his face but hitting his sides as he stands up. He swings at you, you avoid it, and punch him on the same side you kicked. He punches you across the face with what you guess is all his might, probably hoping to throw you on the floor, yet failing to do so. The damage he makes isn’t the worst you’ve taken but it surprises you. He knocked a tooth out. You roll it around your mouth with your tongue, trying to numb the pain from your second row’s tooth moving forward to replace the fallen. You make several exasperated jaw movements to imply something is wrong with your mouth.

“Go on then”, he hisses at you, “Spit it out.”

And you do. You spit your tooth on his face, hitting his glasses with a soft ‘clack’, fuchsia blood running down his cheek to his mouth. He makes a face of complete and utter disgust.

“Go on then”, you mimic his tone, “ _Spit_ _it out_.” You peek your tongue out, running it over the blood on your lips.

He slowly raises a hand up to his face, rubbing the blood off of it with his fingers and moving it in front of him to give it a surprised look. He then looks at you with wide eyes, but other than that you can’t read his face. Well, that is, until he licks your blood off his mouth. _He_ _mirrors your gesture, the fucker_.

“I am going to kill you while you sleep”, you whisper.

“Why don’t you fuckin try”, he growls, baring his teeth. You respond by pulling your lips back to show off your blood-soaked fangs, fuchsia spilling down your chin. If there was anything that even resembled suggestion in his expression before, it’s gone now, replaced by a completely disgusted twist of his features.

“Don’t tempt me.” There’s a good 20 seconds when you fight to keep from running _anything that resembles a weapon_ across his neck, and he seems to be struggling similarly.

Yeah, how’s that for ‘I hate you platonically’, huh, _captain_?

“Fuck this. Clean up this mess an don’t. Go. Anywhere. I hear a _word_ a your color, and I throw you off deck. Got that, princess?” He wipes his face with the back of his hand before moving around the room, fiddling here and there, and then walking out.

After locating a piece of cloth that seems useless, you wipe most of your blood off and keep the cloth in your mouth to keep any more blood from dripping out while your second row’s tooth becomes a first. You then look for another piece – there seems to be a good availability here – and wipe any and all fuchsia from the floor.

The heiress wiping her own blood off the floor.

Fucking woodcarvers dropped backwards on the sand, what has the world done to you?

You take the first cloth out of your mouth and inspect it. It’s fuchsia and torn from your fangs as expected. You poke around with your tongue and decide that you’re still bleeding, a difficult decision considering all you can taste right now is blood. You bite down on the cloth again.

Better make yourself useful if you wanna keep your ride. Now, what can you do confined in a room full of loot? There seems to an awful amount of papers, at least _some_ of those have to be maps, right? You dig around the table and find out that, yes, everything on it is either a map or a blank piece of paper. Several of the maps are outlined wrong, providing slightly altered geography, not that anyone would ever notice. You only did because you’ve had to memorize the coastline of a large part of your planet. The differences between the maps and reality are rather small on the paper, but on scale, they make the difference between a leisurely walk and getting caught in the sunrise.

No wonder he had no hesitation whatsoever to charge you with maps. Whoever was handling them before didn’t do much of a job. Nor do the people who clean the decks. The only trolls on this ship seeming worthy of their position are the wheel handler and the captain himself. Ship full of idiots and a wheel handler.

You get some blank paper and one of the maps – cringing at the inaccuracy, ugh – and get down to work.

About halfway through the third map you stop bleeding and pause your work to burn the fuchsia-stained fabrics in a weird metal container that already has a lot of ash in it. Just as you start working on the fourth map, you hear an awfully loud noise from the deck. Your fins tremble in protest.

You peek out the door to see a bunch of confused slaves looking at each other, at the highbloods, then around the ship and finally half-heartedly going back to work, while still glancing around nervously. It’s probably one of the bottom decks. Several midbloods and a couple of highbloods move to investigate, apparently, but mostly people keep doing their work.

You contemplate going down to see what’s going on but consider the fact that your upper lip is at least somewhat hurt, and in the very last opening your mouth will show off some fuchsia. It’s kinda hard to find out things when you can’t talk. So you close the door and sit back down.

A few minutes later, maybe half an hour, you hear Ampora shouting around, several feet running all over the ship. A knock comes on the door. What? What do you do?

“Feriaf Zeirix?” comes a voice you don’t recognize. “Are you in there?”

“Yes.”

“The captain wanted to know that. I will tell him now. Is there anything you’d like me to pass on?” You think for a moment.

“Yes, tell him I’m working on that thing he asked me and that I hope the fabric around here isn’t valuable.”

“Certainly. I will let him know.” You then hear steps fading away.

Ok, well. The captain, in the middle of whatever it is that’s happening, sent someone to make sure you’re still where he left you. He either doesn’t want any kind of doubt of his authority on the ship, in which case he figured you’d take advantage of the commotion to get out, or something bad happened and he wanted to make sure you’re ok, meaning his cabin is the safest spot on the ship. Any logical person would go for the former, but the way he’s acted, and with the _damn biological shit_ in mind, it could be either.

...It could actually be either in more ways than one, that with the blackflirting when he first saw you earlier tonight. An exasperated sigh leaves your lips. Why did it have to be a seadweller? Now you’re caught up in this quadrantic mess and you _just want none of it_. It could’ve been so easy to pass authority on a landweller, as much as you would’ve hated doing so.

Hell, everything you’ve done so far is things you hate. This world is such a massive ball of chaos, sometimes you feel like you were hatched at the wrong time, at the wrong place. You’ve always wanted a peaceful planet, a universe where blood color is just as meaningless of information as a hatch date. Your lusus found your ideas silly, they could never be real, but you always begged to differ. You know it could be done. You can almost imagine that idealistic world, one in which you, as the Empress, have made peace between the castes. Gl’bgolyb always laughed and then proceeded to bring you back to reality by stating she’s hungry.

She was always hungry.

Even now, after you’ve both cut off your connection, you can feel her hunger buzzing in the back of your head, longing for flesh of dozens. The world you imagined never had her in it. You would never even imagine killing her, but she never existed in your ideals.

She has always been your anchor to reality. Whenever you thought you made some progress, that maybe that one guy really did share your ideals, she would always remind you, _he’s probably lying. No Alternian in their right mind would go against a fuchsia. Agreeing was only a way to get you off his back. He deserves death, Feferi dearest, he would be so delicious..._

You always have to act. Act angry, violent, merciless. Alternian.

You’re ashamed to admit that you’re probably one of the few trolls, if not the only, that has never felt truly hateful towards anyone or anything. Sure, sometimes you felt the murderous intent burn low in your throat. Sometimes you would get on a highblood fury and not even see who’s in front of you. But you’ve never _actually hated_. It never felt like something was wrong with you. It was always something wrong with the world.

And now, you find yourself caught up in a situation you could take great advantage of, if only you could bear to act hateful. So far it’s worked well enough. You just have to keep being unclear about everything, hopefully confuse him enough to be left alone.

By the time you conclude that, yes, it’s a good idea to be suggestive around him if it means your survival, you’ve run out of paper. You start organizing the maps, dividing yours from the others, gathering up the old ones you recreated and putting them in a corner.

“Just what-”, Ampora bursts in, “-makes you think-”, he bounces next to you, “-you can hurt my crew-”, he bumps your head with his arm, “-and attack my ship-”, he buries his hand in your hair, “-and keep from my bad side?”

“What the fuck?” you growl while guiding his hand out of your hair. “Have you lost it? I didn’t attack your ship, I’m right here.” You guess what happened, “Oh, did we get attacked by a lusus?” you grin. “I’m flattered that you think I can communicate with the ocean, but that’s just a rumor. I can’t. Now get off of me”, you groan.

He pushes against you, looming over you. You push up and forth until you stand up and he’s knocked off his feet, having to take a few steps back to regain his balance.

“Then explain why we were attacked?”

“How should I know?” He glances at the table.

“What’s that?”

“I made some maps, you told me to, remember? There’s an awful lot of junk maps around here.”

“Yeah, well, _excuse_ me."

“You were making the maps before? Haha, no wonder.”

“Shut up”, he demands, walking to the table to investigate your work.

“So, is there any damage I should be worried about?”

“Nah”, he murmurs while shifting through the papers. “You made all a these in these few hours?”

“Yeah, well, I used the ones you had as a base and worked from there, I didn’t start from scratch. By the way, how often do you eat here?” You sit in a chair next to him.

“Mids and highs on sundown, lows eat what’s left whenever they wake up. Gonna have to wait ‘till tomorrow if you’re hungry, Fef.” He glances at you as he says your nickname.

“I think I can live with that. Say, how much sleep do you normally need?”

“Mmmfew hours”, he mumbles, going through the maps, eyebrows furrowed. There’s a long pause before he speaks again. “Like three or four.” His jaw is moving and you guess he’s chewing the inside of his cheek. Or nibble, whatever doesn’t make him bleed. You get a dull urge to hug him.

Wait, what?

Seriously, brain?

What the fuck?

You mentally slap yourself in order to take whatever _that_ was out of your head. You really do hope you never develop any feelings for him. He has a lot of potential as a quadrantmate, you’re not about to deny that, but you want nothing to do with anyone right now. You mostly just want to save your ass.

A few minutes go by when neither of you speak or move and you find yourself relaxing in your chair. You realize how tired you are. So fucking tired. And stressed, and drained, and in pain. You could really use a good swim right now. It should be a priority, actually, you haven’t swam since you ran off! And that is a long time for a seadweller!

You guess a nap is the next best thing. Technically you’ve already taken one tonight, but you haven’t slept for nights. You can spare a couple more hours.

As soon as you realize that, you have to struggle not to doze off right then and there. Eridan’s softly rustling the maps is not helping at all. You stretch and yawn, pinch your fin and focus on the pain of your horns.

And yet you still have to fight against sleep.

“What time is it?” you murmur hoarser than you intended.

“Dunno”, he murmurs back after a long pause, “but the sun is up.”

“Is there anything I can do in the immediate future to keep my ride?” You manage to sound a little more awake.

“Guess not.” He takes less time to reply.

“Are you going to sleep anytime soon?”

“I just gotta go though some stuff. Why you askin?”

“It’s been a while since I last slept.”

“What, like four nights?” The corners of his mouth twitch upwards, not quite a smile, but not his usual scowl either.

“More like three. But I didn’t-” you yawn “-didn’t sleep much before either.  I’ve had, I don’t know, four, five hours of actual sleep these past two weeks?” He turns to you.

“And you fight like _that_?” He points at your lip. “ _And_ after severin your horns? Damn, I’m impressed. You should feel honored, it’s not every night it happens.” You do feel a bit honored, ironically enough. Not so much because he’s impressed, but mostly because he basically just admitted he’ll have his ass handed to him next time you fight.

“Whatever, isn’t there anyfin I can do to busy myself?”

“Was that a fish pun?” You feel a jolt of panic running though your veins. ABORT ABORT ABORT

“Shut the fuck up.” You sink in your seat, cross your arms and look away.

“Woa, hey there, didn’t mean to strike a nerve.” He gathers up the maps in a messy pile. “How ‘bout you organize these a bit? I’ll just do my thing over there.” He points at what you assume is a desk, but it’s buried under dozens of clothes, pieces of gold, maps, books, random scrap fabric and paper, so it’s difficult to tell what it actually is. You notice a pile of clothes next to it, conveniently at the size of a couple of bodies. That’s probably where he sleeps.

When you look back at him, he wears an uncertain face before he has a moment of realization, furrowing his brows and then blinking twice to return to his neutral face. You catch on to his train of thought only a moment after.

What’s with the sleepy jamming and the ‘sorry I offended you’s?

The air feels a lot paler than it did only a minute before. You put on your neutral face as well.

“Good enough for me.” He nods and starts moving things about the desk, not really doing much of a job at cleaning it before sitting down and working hunched over the random objects across his work space. You start dividing the maps as you were going to before he interrupted you. It takes you a lot longer than you expected, but you finish the job eventually. You look over at him, still hunched over.

“Your head will fall off.” you say. He takes a few minutes before he answers.

“No it won’t. That’s just stupid.”

“No it’s not. Think about it. Technically the seadweller body isn’t made for land gravity and pressure. Gills make the neck an easy thing to be severed. Hunching over like that for that long is bound to destroy _something_.”

“I call bullshit.” He hunches lower.

“Fine, have it your way. Just know that, if I have to fight that teal first mate of yours for the captainship, I’m bound to win.”

“She’s not my first mate.”

“Whatever”, you yawn. “How much longer?”

“Fine. Fine, I’m done.” He throws his arms up in exasperation and turns around to face you. The yellow of his eyes is darker and redder than last time you bothered looking into them.

He gets up, takes off his shirt and lies down in the pile of clothes facing the wall, his back to you.

“That’s where you sleep?”

“Deal with it.”

“Hey, chill, I just wanted to make sure.” You unbraid your hair, leave your glasses on his table, and ponder how much more you should take off as you remove your boots. He’s not wearing much more than a pair of pants right now, so you guess it’s a norm to sleep in something similar? Do rumble spheres make any difference? You figure wearing heft satchels kinda balances it out, so you take off your shirt. _Thankfully_ there’s very little color on the pair you’re wearing, but that color is fuchsia and it’s right under the straps in the shape of your actual symbol.

You figure that about sums up your current situation, covered in a fake identity so the hidden part of you that’s still there is barely noticeable, even to you.

You lie down next to him, facing away so you’re back to back. You can almost feel the warmth of his body radiating off of him, even though he’s a coldblood and only a shade warmer than you. It’s a comfortable warmth, barely noticeable.

Funny, didn’t you think that about yourself a moment ago?


	3. Your Fate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You're destined to change the world or create a new one.  
> Witch will it be?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (pun intended)  
> (hella lot of violence in this one)

You wake up uncomfortable, mostly because of the pain from what is now the top of your horns. You poke around your mouth with your tongue to find out that your fallen tooth has been fully replaced.

You get up, stretching your aching body and shaking the horrorterrors’ whispers off your mind. _We’re not thinking about dreams tonight._

You stand up and stretch some more before remembering you fell asleep next to someone. You look over your shoulder at him. He’s still facing the wall, his sides moving gently as he breathes in his sleep.

You could indeed kill him while he sleeps. He’s lucky he’s your ride.

You continue stretching all over, going to ridiculous lengths to make sure you’re not in danger of pulling any muscles during a fight or something because that can make the difference between life and death and that’d be a stupid way to die when the most powerful troll in existence is after your head.

You settle in a chair and braid your hair in two braids this time, more graceful twists and better work at tying them both. You even find a silver and purple thing that probably used to be a bracelet and decorate your right braid with it. You finish putting on your first boot just as Eridan wakes up.

He rubs his face and rolls over, squinting at you through the sleep in his eyes. He sits up and feels his way through the mess of a desk to find his glasses. He turns to you again, this time not squinting.

“Mmwhy aren’cha wear’n a shirt?” he mumbles hoarsely, still dancing between wakefulness and unconsciousness.

“You’re not either”, you respond, not quite as hoarsely, but still pretty hoarse.

He looks down before answering. “Huh.” He looks back up. “Guess I was kinda ‘xpectin you to be ‘mbarass’d or some shit, I dunno.” He rubs his face again, taking a moment to adjust his glasses. “’m not a happy waker.”

“Tell me about it.” You take a final look at your braid before putting on your glasses. “Uh, do you see my shirt anywhere?”

“Uhh...” He looks around, but eventually settles to looking at you.

“Rude.” You squint at him.

“Fuck if I care”, he stands up and moves closer to you, his eyes still on your chest.

“I will punch your wind pipe. Stop that.” He lazily drags his sight to your face.

“Yeah, huh, uh... I don’t care. ’s not every night I see that s’mbol bein worn, kay?.” He turns and grabs his shirt. “And, whatev, your color’s r’lly good on you.”

Was that his attempt at compliment? Whatever, you gotta find your shirt if you want not to starve for another night. You spot it and slip it on, deciding to add a few bracelets to your outfit.

“Okay”, he stretches his arms over his head, “s’mone’ll bring food at sunset, so don’t panic.”

“You’re talking weird.”

“Told you, ‘m not a happy waker.” He yawns. “Think you can clean up this mess?”

You follow his sight to the monstrous pile on the desk. You mentally roll your eyes and throw your arms up in exasperation, but physically, you only nod. He nods back, picks one of the books from the pile and sits at the table to read it. _Asshole._

You begin by dumping all the books on the table, mostly to spite him with the sound. You find an empty box and fill it with what gold you come across. Eventually it fills up and you place it on a wooden chest next to the desk. You make a pile on the floor with all fabric, finally leaving only paper on the desk – and some gold you can’t quite place anywhere just yet.

There’s a knock on the door. You hastily rearrange your hair.

“Come in”, Eridan calls.

A brownblood enters carrying two plates in one arm, and leaves the food on the table, next to the books. He turns to leave.

“Thank you!” you exclaim when Eridan shows no sign of doing so. The lowblood stops walking for a fraction of a second before he continues off, looking back only to close the door after he leaves. You don’t see if he sneaked a peek at you, averting your eyes when the setting sun’s light enters through the door.

You sit across from Eridan, who raises an eyebrow at you.

“Did you just thank him?”

“Yes. Yes I did.”

“Why?” he asks as if it’s an unimaginable gesture.

“Because he brought us food!”

“He’s a slave. It’s his job to do as told.”

“No it’s not. Do you pay him? It’s not a job if he’s not paid. And just because he has to do it doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be appreciated for it!”

“That makes no sense. Why bother if it’s going to happen anyway? Do you thank the moons when they rise?”

“Yes. Yes I do. As often as I can.”

He makes a freaked face. You slit your eyes at him and proceed to casually eat your food as if nothing happened. You make short work of your food before returning to the desk and arranging the papers on it in a neat pile based on their size and not their content. You gather what gold is left and nudge it to a corner of the desk. You then walk out the door, making sure to close it behind you.

The air is salty and the wind is in your face and it’s lightly raining and you feel quite content for a moment. You feel at home.

Eventually you persuade the wheel handler to let you steer the ship and it’s great. The upcoming storm creates waves that let you actually steer instead of simply holding the wheel. You glide along them, sailing over them or turning to follow their course. The rain hits you and hydrates you as you’ve needed it to, not to mention relieving your horns from the incessant pain. The wind carries the moisture of a mist and the salt of a sea, and you love the taste it leaves on your lips so, your tongue insists on peeking out to view the world.

You take a lot of things off your mind while you sail.

Which, unfortunately, allows you to slip in memories of your dreams...

You recall the incoherent whispers, one over another, never quite forming proper words. Almost words, almost whispers, almost cries, the plentiful almosts of the horrorterrors create an imperfect comfort to your tired brain. They offer a faraway enemy, allow you to escape the reality you live in, if only for a while. Ancient gods of twisted souls demanding your utter dedication as much as they cry begging for your mercy. Your interactions with them were limited and you doubt you hold either of what they’re asking. You never quite recall learning the language they speak, ancient and slow as death, every word undeniably clear with its twirls and mumbles in every other beat, while still maintaining an uneasy space for doubt, clear and unclear like rain on smoke.

Hearing the whispers was bound to steal your sanity, even with your lusus’ guidance. _You should always try to listen to us as individuals, never as a whole..._

This time was different. It was the first time you actually slept long enough to form dreams after you cut off your connection with Gl’bgolyb. As always, you could see nothing but hear everything, as if you were awake and had simply closed your eyes. You could never remember how the whispers started, only that they were there. Amongst the agony of the horrorterrors you managed to collect your sense of self enough to focus on individual sounds. You heard one of the youngest gods plea for your death. A pair that always talked in sync in a way that one covered the hushed sounds and mumbled yells of the other, this time peacefully inquiring about your life – where are you sleeping, how is your body positioned, how dare you leave their sister unfed, why haven’t you died in a million horrible ways yet. You heard the eldest of ill voices breathe over every else, spitting your name like poison before submerging in the chaos of sounds again. For a moment, many silenced themselves, before attacking you again so intensely you felt like losing your balance.

And then you could hear a voice you’d never heard in your dreams before, only at your wake. Gl’bgolyb.

She whispered quietly and sabotaged her own words far more than you’d ever heard her. You could barely make sense of her voice. After a point you felt ill calling your lusus a ‘she’ as Gl’bgolyb merged progressively with the other gods. It talked more and more rapidly, skipping syllables and even words. You tried to focus harder on it until you managed to comprehend two phrases in their entirety.

_“Your mind is stained, you dare seek me wearing such a face, one that I did not give you? She knows not where you are, hero of life, and may she only find your corpse.”_

You ask the wheel handler to take over for you. He complies and you take this opportunity to sit on the deck not far from the wheel. You take several deep breaths to clear your mind once more. You form a cup with your hand and gather rainwater to splash on your gills. It’s nice.

When you feel like moving again you decide to explore the parts of the ship you haven’t yet. You go down to the third deck, where you run into the brownblood that brought you food. You walk up to him and wave your hand. He looks away and turns around.

“Hey, you!” you say, not quite a shout but sure is loud enough for him to hear. “You! Yes, you!”

He hesitates but turns to face you. “Yes?” His voice is weak.

“What’s your name?”

“Slave 14.” You cringe.

“That can’t be your name. Who gave you that title?”

“My first owner.”

“Don’t say that! You’re not a thing to be owned, no one is. If you must, you should say ‘master’ or ‘boss’. Now, hey, don’t be scared. I’m not going to hurt you, promise. What’s your name?”

In retrospect, his name isn’t all that important. You forget it immidiately.

“There, see? Doesn’t that feel better? Why would you introduce yourself with a title you never chose? Is that what the captain calls you?”

“Yes.”

“It is?” You lean back. “Wow, that- did you introduce yourself to him as such?”

“Yes.” He glances away for a fraction of a second.

“Is something the matter?”

“Are- I have never seen you around before. What is your position on the ship, if I may ask?”

“I’m, well, making maps. And second wheel handler.” You observe him. “You seem doubtful.”

“I apologize.” He looks down. He opens his mouth but closes it quickly.

“What is it?”

“We- We are always informed about crew additions. It’s just, I don’t remember a violet amongst the last ones.”

“Oh. Not to worry, it’s probably symbolic.” You lean closer to whisper. “I’m the captain’s girlfriend. He probably doesn’t want me to be considered part of the crew. I’m not sure how long I’ll stay.” You smile. “I’ll try to get him to call you by your name, okay?”

His eyes shoot up. He looks back down. “That’s not necessary.”

“I’m doing it anyway.” You turn around and climb up the decks to find Eridan.

You find him near the wheel handler, the two of them discussing quietly. When you walk over they both stop talking abruptly and turn to you.

“Can I speak with you for a minute?” you say in your highblood voice. Not that either of them isn’t used to it.

“Sure.” Eridan nods at the wheel handler – who turns to his job – and walks over to the very edge of the deck. You follow him.

“So what is it?”

“Do you call the slaves by number?”

“What.”

“Do you”, you cross your arms, “call the slaves by number.”

“Not really? Some a them, yeah, but mostly-- _marginally_ they have names. I use those.”

“Are you certain? It seems to me you call them by numbers.”

“What the fuck gave you that impression?” He narrows his eyes.

“What do you think?”

“You don’t-” he stops mid-sentence and blinks several times. “It’s the brownblood, isn’t it?”

“He has nothing to do with the way you treat those who work for you.”

“Isn’t it? Oh shit it is. Fucker said what, exactly?”

“He said _nothing_ -”

“I’m sure you’re jumpin to his defense because you just felt like it.” He chuckles cruelly to himself. “Say, Fef, why don’t you go get that map you made? You know which one.”

“I’m not going anywhere when you look like that.”

“Sure you’re not”, he smirks. He pats your shoulder as he walks past you.

Mother

_Fucker._

You start moving across the deck. You’re not sure how much time passed, but the rain let up. You hear a loud voice.

“Gather up, gather up! Come, please, entertainment for everyone!” A small crowd starts forming at one side of the ship. You try to blend in and move as forward as you can. That was definitely Eridan’s voice.

Finally, you get a visual on him. He’s standing on the rail, one hand holding on a rope for balance, the other carrying something. Upon closer inspection, your fears are confirmed. It’s the brownblood. He doesn’t seem dead, probably knocked out.

Some people are cheering, others whistling, others laughing, some lowering their eyes and tearing up.

“Gather, quickly! Tonight we’re havin bets. Who here-”, he pauses to look at the ever growing crowd, “thinks this guy will get eaten in his first minute in the sea?”

He leans back and stretches out both his arms. The body falls in the water.

You don’t even think. You dive after him.

The crash against the water isn’t nearly enough to delay the flood of feelings you mercilessly receive in the ocean. Alertness; you are aware of hundreds of creatures nearby. Relief; the pain that’s been tormenting you washes away as you dive deeper. Overwhelming joy; you can finally _breathe_ , you can _see_ , you can _hear_ , you can _be_. Blood-freezing horror.

You wrap your arms under his and around his chest and _push_ with your legs, up and out of the water. You stretch an arm, grab the ship and climb the wood. When you reach the deck you throw the limp body hard at the feet of the crowd. You throw yourself after him, bringing down your fist on his torso. He coughs up water.

“Scatter”, Eridan utters. A few from the crowd – they seem to have been appointed beforehand – yell the order out loud. In a shocking amount of time, everyone scatters the fuck away.

You rush to the brownblood’s side but are yanked away before you can so much as lean over. You see him squirming and struggling for breath. You deem him alive enough.

When you turn to see who’s dragging you away, you’re not that surprised to see a ringed hand around your arm. Eridan throws you in his cabin and closes the door behind him while staring you down. His eyes are narrow and his pupils are slits.

“What the _fuck_ do you think you’re doin?” he hisses.

“Why the _fuck_ do I have to answer?” you mimic him.

“This”, he snarls, “is _my_ ship. _You_ hold no power. _The deal_ was to keep you so long you’re doin shit right.”

“I’m doing shit better than anyone here.”

“You’re defyin my orders. I don’t tolerate defiance. Next one to be thrown overboard is you.”

You freeze.

_Blood-freezing horror._

“... That... won’t work out well f-for you.” Dammit.

“What’s up with that?” he raises an eyebrow at your stutter.

 “She’ll know I’m in Her sea”, you begin, focusing on keeping your voice level and definitely not on the shudder that runs down your spine, or the way your hair clings to your body, or the numb pain in the back of your head meaning Gl’bgolyb senses something wrong. “... and will kill anyone in the vicinity.”

His eyebrows furrow. He’s studying you. You straighten your shaking back and roll your shoulders with just a tiny twitch. You sincerely hope he misses it, but he doesn’t. His eyes shoot down for a moment.

You suppose the look in your eye betrays you.

He takes a terrified step back and a deep breath. He then takes a couple of steps forward. Very brave, but you don’t appreciate it. You bare your fangs.

He holds his breath for a bit before speaking.

“What is it?”

You could lie. You could feign spades. You could feign _diamonds_. You could walk away. You could kill him. You could do a million things other than tell the truth.

“She _knows_ when I’m in the water. _I_ know when She’s in the water. Why the fuck would I need a ship otherwise?”

“She... She knows where you are?”

“Yes. We have to go, _now_.”

“Done.” He hesitates, but holds a hand to you. “Are you okay?”

Normally you’d respond with a snarky comment, but alas.

“How do I _fucking look?”_ you start shaking. The hand that’s been hovering in front of your face finds its way on it and slides to your shoulder. You slap it away. “Can you not”, you hiss.

“Please”, he whispers. There sure is sincerity in his eyes, but that won’t help, ever. Especially not you.

“I can handle myself”, you growl. “Get us away, quick.”

He barely nods before leaving. You hear barked orders and feel the shift as the ship speeds up. You sit cross-legged on the floor and close your eyes. You stay like that until you stop shaking. Your joints come loose and you feel the flexibility of water on your muscles.

You open your eyes and your muscles tense right up. You walk out and nearly bump into Eridan. He’s standing on the height the front of his cabin provides, inspecting the crew as they carry out his orders. He doesn’t turn to look at you.

“Where are we heading?” you murmur when you get to his side.

“Away. Southwest, actually. Does it matter?” You look at the now descending moons. At least he’s honest.

“No, not really.” She can catch up no matter where you’re heading. You don’t tell him that, hoping he knows.

“Are-” He hesitates, holds his breath, lets it out. Inhales again.

“I’m not okay”, you turn to him. “I’ll never be.” He turns to you as well.

“... Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

He shifts a little closer. You do too, even though you don’t know why.

“Oh, shit”, you hiss through clenched teeth. “Cynday.” He hums in understanding. You lean on him and casually look over the deck, the sea, back at the deck, only glancing at where Cynday’s half-hiding and observing you.

“Fuck”, he turns his face to nuzzle your hair.

“Think she’s on to us?”

“I don’t know what you told her, but she’s certainly not convinced one bit. Hasn’t been since the beginnin.”

“Fuck. I have a horrible idea. What quadrant do we look like right now?”

“Uh”, he takes his face out of your hair and as you look at him you hope you seem intimate from afar. “Flush? Pale, maybe?” He pauses. “Flush, I guess.” He glances down. You already know you’ll regret this.

You press your lips up against his. He rests a hand on your hip and you curl your fingers in his hair. He licks your lips and you let him in. He’s got game, that much you won’t deny.

But you hate this. You feel disgusted with yourself. You hate the reasons of both of you, you hate the excuse, you hate the motifs you show and the motifs you feel, you hate the kiss and you hate the way he’s pulling you closer and the way you kiss him back. You don’t want this. You don’t. Please, stop it. Please.

He pulls away and leans his forehead against yours in a way that your hair hides both your faces. You can feel tears forming in your eyes.

“I’m so fuckin sorry”, he breathes.

“It’s not- I kissed you, you couldn’t- it’s biological-” You stop yourself before you say something even stupider.

“She’ll catch up anyway, won’t she?”

“Cynday or the Empress?”

“Both.”

“Yeah”, you mumble, “I guess she will.” You pull away and lean your head on his shoulder.

“Let’s not, okay?” he says under his breath, leaning his head against your horns.

“Yeah.” You take his hand in yours. “Let’s not.”

By the time Cynday gives up on her obvious spying, you and Eridan have shared three more hugs, two cheek kisses, a forehead kiss and five forehead touches. You feel absolutely sickened with your actions. You find yourself dizzy.

“I’m going back in”, you say and put a hand on his shoulder when you realize turning made you lose your balance.

“Are you- Do you need help?”

“No. Don’t look after me. I’m not your Empress.”

He opens his mouth but closes it quickly and nods.

You lie down on his pile and close your eyes.  Deep breaths. Relax your body.

Get it together Feriaf, you just-

Feferi. Your name is Feferi. Feriaf is a font.

Your name is Feferi Peixes.

You’re not sure if you actually sleep or distance yourself from consciousness enough to be attacked, but you hear screaming. Every last horrorterror that’s older than your lusus is screaming as loud as they can. Gl’bgolyb is the only coherent one.

_“You dare appear in such a form again, she knows where you are and is on her way, witch.”_

In unison, all the voices whisper.

_“Join us.”_

You jolt up. Eridan whips his head up from his work to look at you. He’s hunched over the table in the middle of the cabin. You cover your fins to silence the remnants of the voices, not that it’s ever worked.

“Is it day yet?”

“Yes”, he says hoarsely. “I didn’t think you were asleep.”

“I wasn’t”, you stand up. “My daymares are a little harder to escape than most.” You begin doing your ridiculously long stretching routine. You’re about two minutes in hugging your knees and pressing your head against your legs when Eridan  speaks up again.

“How long are you goin to stay like that?”

“Five minutes.”

“That’s long.” He sighs and walks to the pile. “I’m gonna sleep; wake me if somethin happens.”

“Sure”, you lie. If something does happen, you won’t have the luxury to so much as think about him.

He looks at you wearing a face of pure worry. He’s not even trying to hide it.

“Don’t do that”, you growl. “Don’t worry about me; don’t you dare. I’m not your Empress.”

“I’d like you to be”, he mumbles so quietly you wouldn’t have caught it if you weren’t a seadweller. He turns around and lies down, leaving you staring wide-eyed.

This is an unexpected development.

You take some extra time to stretch and then do some simple exercises. A weapon. Good idea. You look around and spot something that distinctly resembles a 2x3dent. From a certain angle. Okay, so it’s just a long stick with blades at the ends, so what. It’s similar enough.

You grab it and- holy terrors it’s very light. It won’t do shit in a fight. You wield it around; it almost slips out of your hold several times. You continue until you feel accustomed enough to its weight. You put on your tiara in hopes of feeling a little bit more like yourself. You then sit cross-legged next to the door, weapon resting on your lap. And you wait.

You have to remember what your lusus told you. She cares for you; she’d never try to harm you. She called you-

Witch?

Hero?

Neither makes any sense. Witches don’t exist and if she really wanted to call you great, wouldn’t she have used ‘heroine’? She always uses gendered forms when they exist. Is there a word for ‘heroine’ in the tongue of the horrors? There is. Why not use it? Why call you hero of...

of...

of life?

Does that mean you’ll save life? Whose life? Your own? That’s impossible.

You’re so confused.

Why would she-

There’s a loud crashing noise and several smaller ones. You shoot up. You peek out the door, hissing at the setting sunlight, still far too bright for your eyes. Eridan makes several noises you don’t really bother to register.

Something has crashed up the ship. Literally, whatever that is, was below deck and has crushed _up_ , destroying the front third of Eridan’s ship. It’s black and has several fuchsia markings.

You feel your blood freezing with terror and then boiling on instincts. Bless them, without those instincts you would’ve died of fear.

Someone bursts out of the ship. A blueblood – an adult – lashes at you. You move to doge him, weapon ready, a blinding white flash burns past your shoulder and he disappears. You turn to find Eridan carrying a shotgun almost reaching his height. He gets to your side, still aiming.

“You okay?”

“Never. What are you doing?”

“Helpin, I hope.” He climbs over the rail and jumps down at the deck.

“I’m not your Empress!” you yell after him.

“I’d love you to be!” he yells back before diving into the wreckage.

There are countless incessant flashes all over the place. You consider diving after him – you’re not going in Her field – or diving in the water – as much as you’d love to, that’s still her field – until you settle for staying where you are.

The white flashing stops.

A gold flash goes over your head. You only dodge it thanks to your cut horns. It’s a 2x3dent, fuchsia swirling around it. It stands over twice your height. You try to pull it out from where it’s landed in the cabin. It doesn’t budge. You go for it again. It burns red, blue and white and busts out on its own. You turn to the psionic that-

Your ancestor is hovering over the deck. Her left arm is as surrounded in light as the weapon that it’s holding. Her hair is flowing practically everywhere and Her psionics, their symbol, the symbol that hovers in front of Her own and your own, the symbol that rests on her forehead, it’s not hers. It’s alternating between one you don’t recognize and one you almost do. It hides her symbol. Your symbol. The one you’re proudly wearing and the one she’s currently hiding. The one that’s all over her clothing and nowhere to be found on yours.

You don’t have time to feel small or boil over with murderous instinct when she gets right in your face and grabs your neck. You choke on your pressured windtube and crushed gills. You struggle to move your weapon, she knocks it out of your hold and there’s a sharp pain from three points on your torso, your vision blurs-

She swings you over her head and throws you on deck. You crash through the wood and on the second deck, wheezing for air not so much due to the hit or your damaged respiratory systems as to the gaping hole in your lung. You struggle to stand, at least get your face off the floor-

She descends roughly contrasting her hair that follows gracefully. She stares you down. Laughs. It sounds like a stormy ocean.

“You the most challengin I’ve had in centuries.” She takes a step and you rest your weight against the wall, almost standing up, almost, gold flashes to your head and you lean over reflexively. A deafening ripping sound on your right, pain, pain, blood pounding in your skull and flowing down your cheek and neck and shoulder and you can’t hear anything from your right fin anymore – murderous silence resonating next to shocking noise-

All you see is a black blur and a golden blur. You hear her talking but can’t _hear_ her. Voices different than hers whisper from behind her. Her hair creates shapes you barely register as she breaks what’s left of one of your horns. Everything adopts a hue of fuchsia under the weight of the blood in your head or maybe the tears in your eyes. The shapes in the black become sharp.

They’re not forming in her hair.

Your other horn is crushed and the whispers get louder. So loud you can almost make out the words of the horrors-

Join us. Every heiress that has died in Her hands hovers over Her head, formless limps swirling around one another in shapes you’ve only imagined in your sleep.

Among them a small figure you’ve never seen before but recognize.

Gold flashes under your chin.

Death holds out a hand to you.

You stretch what used to be arms and hug Death.


End file.
